Residents continue to resist Hamilton urban boundary expansion

People in Hamilton were keeping up the pressure on the provincial government today over farmland and the environment.

They’re fighting to force Premier Doug Ford to reverse his order for Hamilton to expand its urban boundary.

After winning a victory over the Greenbelt, environmental protestors say there’s still a lot more to be done.

Premier Doug Ford apologized when he reversed his Greenbelt development plan last month, but protestors want to see the promise in action.

READ MORE: Doug Ford announces reversal of Ontario Greenbelt land swap decision

Zoe Green from Stop the Sprawl Hamilton says they haven’t seen the details yet so they want to keep up the conversation.

And they’re fighting the province’s order for Hamilton to expand its urban boundary into farmland, which still stands.

“That is much larger in size in Hamilton than the Greenbelt grab would have been and we want to have an investigation and really look into the details of how were those lands identified,” Green said.

This rally for farmland was sparked by young people, some very young.

It started when a family’s children between five and eight years old asked what an environmental protest in the spring was about.

“We talked about the issues, about how they’re changing protected land into housing developments and our kids said ‘That’s not fair, they shouldn’t be doing that.’ and they said we should do something,” the children’s father said.

READ MORE: NDP ask Ontario auditor to probe urban land expansions in wake of Greenbelt report

Five-year-old Sage wrote to Premier Doug Ford, and although Ford didn’t respond, other politicians did.

“I got an invitation from an eight-year-old to come to this rally and I’m certainly not going to turn that down and I think Doug Ford needs to take the same approach and listen to the youth,” City Counsellor Craig Cassar said.

“Youth in our community asked us to show up and I think that’s what youth around the world have been asking for when it comes to climate action,” City Counsellor Alex Wilson said.

And other young people showed up.

For a long time Premier Doug Ford ignored the people who were fighting to protect the Greenbelt, until he finally apologized and reversed that policy.

Now, it seems he’s also willing to ignore small children. But this battle isn’t over.